That's a good point actually, in fact there's a potential story element there if a sizeable portion decide not to join the Forsaken at all but form a secondary faction. I'm guessing a good chunk of the Forsaken would only be under Sylvanas' banner because they've got no other place to go, and recent events at the Wrathgate have demonstrated not all undead are... shall we say, pro-life?

Assuming all the undead under the command of the Lich Kind don't just keel over, they all have to go somewhere. After his defeat I would assume a large-scale culling of the undead would go on, but who knows.

It's possible that a large number would go to the legion, and some may go to the Forsaken, but it's also possible that we get someone who tries to keep the Scourge together under their own command. It's unlikely that it will be anyone with nearly as much power as Arthas, but still.

In all cases I can remember, when the "mind (overmind? heh)" responsible for animating the corpses of the dead is shut down, the bodies simply crumple lifelessly. From what I can see, the majority of the scourge are simply animated, mindless puppets. They don't appear to share the traits of the Forsaken - and I assume that when Arthas' link to them is severed, they won't wander around aimlessly as suddenly sentient beings, but they'll just become a pile of bones once more.

This is particularly present in Rise of the Lich King, as Arthas is constantly using effortless physical gestures to manipulate the motion of his army.

I wonder if there's a difference in necromantic methods used between the resurrection of the Forsaken and the Scourge? When Arthas was betrayed by the Dread Lords and weakened as he fled The Undercity, we saw the Forsaken turn on him like puppets, prior to regaining their sentience... history has shown us that when the puppetmaster is shoved out of the picture, they do seem to regain their sentience, which I guess is pretty contradictory to my first paragraph.

I guess a simple explanation would be the subject needs to have their brain intact? This fits consistently with the residents and Abominations of The Undercity.

Whilst we wouldn't experience it within the game itself, it's safe to assume that in reality, we'd be killing every last Scourge soldier on our way to Arthas, clearing out Icecrown and purging all of Northrend before making the march to his doorstep. Unfortunately due to the limitations of respawns, most of the Undead we've killed in Icecrown are still visible to the player. But pretending for a moment that they didn't respawn, we could safely assume that there would be no Scourge left to "wake up" after Arthas hits the floor?

I'd like to think through phasing we can experience it in at least some small way in-game. A good candidate would be the massive Scourge force guarding the final gate before Icecrown - having some quest chain or world event leading to a large-scale showdown, then phasing the Scourge out would work well from a gameplay point of view, and would be pretty much necessary from a story point of view.

But either way yes you're right, it seems unlikely that we could even get to Arthas without having to decimate most of his army on the way.

I noticed something tonight before we started pulling Vezax trash, and I couldn't find if it had been brought up before.

If you ever go down Hodir's hallway, at the end you'll find that there's a dead end with a lone Frost Giant sitting in front of it. Likewise, between Mimiron's and Vezax's Hallways, there's a locked door. Each entryway has a unique decoration, signifying who resides within. It made me wonder if they hadn't actually forgotten about Tyr but then realized they didn't have time / space, or just plain thought of something new to do with him?

As far as I can see, it is just a big assumption we are making that they forgot about Tyr, when it is possible that Tyr was left out for various other reasons and will either show up in the other TItan Vaults or has left Azeroth completely.

We have at least three counter-examples in Icecrown: the banshee, abomination, and geist that we free from the Lich King's control. The way it looked to me wasn't just the substitution of one master for another -- remember the dialog each of them has when we work through the quest? What it looks like to me is, the control link is severed, and the newly-free undead are then persuaded to work with the Knights of the Ebon Blade (though I understand some folks might argue with that, and in any event nothing is ever so clear that Blizzard cannot retcon it). And there are other non-death-knight undead also working for that faction (gargoyle flight masters, ghoul vendors, et cetera).

We have two distinct factions that contain sentient non-player non-deathknight undead that broke from the scourge (Forsaken & Knights of the Ebon Blade). If the Lich King is destroyed, yeah, I expect many to just collapse lifelessly, but I think there's going to be enough left that dozens of distinct sub-factions will crop up.

(Edit: in fact, I'm recalling that we see a lich who's a member of the Ebon Blade, back in training HQ. I guess it's not impossible that Lich will be a future hero class, and they'll be members of the Ebon Blade just as Death Knights are.)

Seems like it would be a great situation to make use of the hydrogen bomb sitting in the Skybreaker's cargo bay, assuming of course, that it is some type of nuclear device.

I doubt a Lich hero class would ever happen considering the Death Knight takes so much from the Lich and Necromancer.

I think there's still some room left to fit him into Wrath too. For example, if Tyr spotted the dreadlords creating the original Lich King next door a few years ago and tried to stop them, players could well run into whatever's left of him in Icecrown Citadel (or, for that matter, in a hypothetical CoT instance covering the Lich King's creation). Maybe he even got stuck in the glacier and will be uncovered during the Argent Coliseum construction, though I have trouble imagining that coming across very seriously.

There really is a TON of lore that has to play out with the conclusion of this expansion, and I'm hoping for nothing short of epic.

You've got the three acts, the Wrathgate bringing MANY questions to the table in addition to older characters who have a role to play here.

Varian, Thrall, Garrosh, Bolvar, Saurfang, Sylvanas, Vereesa, Rhonin, Muradin, Jaina, Tirion, Darion, Alexastrasza, etc, etc, etc.


So many people who have a bone to pick with one another and Arthas. I hope they don't miss out on all these loose ends.